Friday, March 30, 2012

Dublin Getaway

We arrived in Dublin, a short 45 minute flight from Birmingham. This is our first trip to Ireland and Russ was welcomed by the immigration officer as she said, "You must have some ancestors here... Welcome and enjoy your stay."

We chose a hotel on upper O'Connell Street, the largest street in Europe which was quaint and comfortable. We walked around and saw a leprechaun on the corner near the River Liffey.

For an early evening snack, we headed to MJ O'Neill's, one of the oldest pubs in Dublin.

Russ definitely enjoyed his first pint of Guinness in his "motherland".

The pub was rather large with lots of rooms. We got our food and sat in this cozy space.

The Irish and Americans are similar in their food portions. Russ had the traditional fish & chips while I had a very tasty carrot, mint & orange soup. I ate it all before I took a photo of it.

This was the church across the street from the pub. Because Dublin is quite north, it stayed light until nearly 8pm. The weather has been uncharacteristically warm... around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We are so fortunate to be here at this time.

There are a lot of ethnic restaurants in the Temple Bar district and many of them look great. The food variety in Ireland is impressive!

We saw this sign but didn't go into the place to see what this was about.

The streets are clean and there are lots of tourists walking about. It must be Easter/spring break.

This is Trinity College, the oldest college in Dublin.

We walked a couple miles and passed lots of nice architecture.

For dinner, we went to Flanagan's for a light meal since we already had some food at O'Neill's.

The mussels in white wine, cream sauce was quite good!

The mushroom risotto was flavorful as well.

The stuffed mushrooms were yummy and I liked the side salad.

For dessert, we tried the profiteroles, which we call "cream puffs". This was decadent as it was covered in chocolate sauce.